A spider under the skin? It's a Facebook survey scam

[DainBramaged]

arachnophobia.

Maybe it's time that we had an official word for a dislike of Facebook survey scams too? There are certainly plenty of people over on the Naked Security page on Facebook who are fed to the back teeth with the scams that spread virally across the social network, tricking users into taking surveys and earning the scammers money.

Here's the latest - which claims to be a disgusting video of a spider under someone's skin.



A spider under the skin!

Omg so disgusting :s

Other versions can read:

O-M-G - Spider Grows Under Skin - Crazy!

Totally Crazy and just a little gross. But still Amazing!

and

GROSS! Spider grows under her skin


and

That's s0 Gr0ss! Sp!der Und3r Sk1n


and

This spider is brutal..

OMG - Spider inside the skin of this girl, extremely painful !

Clicking on the link takes you to a webpage which pretends that it is about to show you the video, but insists that you verify your age first.



However, clicking "Jaa" doesn't confirm your age at all. It actually shares the message about the spider with your other Facebook friends ("Jaa" is the Finnish word for "Share", and there has been a trend lately with survey scams to use this subterfuge).

If you make the mistake of sharing the link with your online pals, you will then be taken to a survey, overlaid over a pretend YouTube page.

The scammers earn commission for each survey completed, but they don't want to tell you that as it may make you more reluctant to participate. Instead they fraudulently pretend that it is a YouTube age verification dialog.

If you got hit by this scam, make sure you have removed the entries from your news feed (to stop them being shared amongst your friends) and check your profile does not have any unwanted "Likes" under your "Likes and interests".

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/07/12/a-spider-under-the-skin-its-a-facebook-survey-scam/

[kestrel91316]

1. I just assume all this sort of thing spreads viruses. I try to NEVER

click on mysterious pop-ups.

[Cirque du So-What]

2. Add that to the already-long list of reasons why I don't do Facebook

My wife, who for years had a borderline aversion to anything computer-related, is now an ardent Facebook fan. As I type this, I can hear the incessant 'KA-CHING! KA-CHING!' of the speaker on her PC - some inane Facebook game that's running - and she's not even in the room!

I've warned her about clicking on anything that looks in the least bit hinky, but it looks like there's yet another thing I need to caution her about.

[sammytko]

3. hopefully she will get over it - I did

I was on it for about a year at the urging of "friends". I still look every few days to see what is going on, but do not play the games. I never clicked on any of those videos, pics, etc.